Venezuela, Explained

In the early hours of Saturday, 3 January 2026, the United States launched a surprise military operation in Venezuela that ended with President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in U.S. custody in New York, facing U.S. charges related to drug and arms trafficking. 

If that sentence made your brain briefly leave your body: same. It reads like historical fiction. But it’s being reported as present tense. What matters now is not just what happened, but what it does to the meaning of sovereignty, the price of oil, and the lived psychology of millions of Venezuelans—inside the country and across a diaspora that has become one of the largest displacement stories on Earth. 

This is an editorial explanation grounded in what we can verify right now, with sources throughout.

1) What the U.S. says it did — and what it’s claiming next

The broad contours are consistent across major reporting: a U.S. operation removed Maduro from Venezuela and transported him to the United States. 

From there, the language got… imperial, fast.

Donald Trump publicly framed the strike as extraordinary in scale, then said the U.S. would effectively “run” Venezuela during a transition, arguing it would not cost Americans because Venezuela’s oil wealth would fund it. 

At the same time, U.S. officials have tried to narrow that claim. According to AP reporting, Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested the U.S. would not manage Venezuela “day-to-day,” even as the administration signalled it intends to use leverage over the oil sector to shape outcomes. 

So we have a familiar modern pattern: the maximalist headline (“we run it”) followed by the administrative footnote (“not literally”).

2) The immediate power question: if not Maduro, then who?

Venezuela’s institutions didn’t dissolve when Maduro was flown out. They defaulted—rapidly—into continuity.

AP and Reuters report that Vice President Delcy Rodríguez has assumed the role of interim/acting president, backed by key state institutions and the military. 

That creates a paradox: a post-Maduro Venezuela that may still be governed by the Maduro system. Even sympathetic observers of regime change should be honest about how often power simply rearranges rather than transforms.

3) The legality: the world’s loudest argument is about a quiet line in the UN Charter

There is a reason this has detonated at the United Nations.

International law doesn’t ban violence because it is immoral (though it is). It bans it because, if you normalise it, every border becomes a suggestion.

The UN Charter’s baseline is blunt: states must refrain from the threat or use of force against another state’s territorial integrity or political independence. 

The two commonly cited exceptions are:

• Self-defence (after an armed attack, under Article 51), or
• UN Security Council authorisation  

On the reporting available so far, neither condition clearly applies. Reuters reports that legal experts widely regard the operation as illegal due to the absence of UN authorisation, Venezuelan consent, and a valid self-defence claim. 

Chatham House’s early legal analysis goes further in its framing, arguing there is no justification in international law for the capture and attacks as described. 

And that’s why this story isn’t just “Venezuela news.” It’s a stress test of whether the post-1945 rulebook still binds the countries powerful enough to ignore it.

4) Oil: the gravitational force behind almost every sentence

If Venezuela were not oil-rich, it is difficult to imagine this exact operation happening in this exact way.

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves—about 303 billion barrels, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. 

And yet its production has collapsed compared to historical highs. Reuters cites output around ~800,000–900,000 barrels per day recently, after decades of decline driven by underinvestment, mismanagement, corruption, and sanctions-related constraints. 

Trump has explicitly linked U.S. intentions to Venezuelan oil, including calls for U.S. oil companies to restore production—an emphasis widely noted in reporting and analysis. 

There’s the story you can tell in public (drugs, democracy, humanitarianism) and the story the commodity markets immediately understand: control and capacity. 

But oil is not a magic wand. Analysts quoted by Reuters stress that meaningful recovery would still require huge investment and time; it’s not something you “flip back on” because you captured a president.

5) Venezuelans’ reactions: relief and dread can be true at the same time

Here’s the emotional truth that comfortable observers tend to miss: You can despise a dictator and still fear a foreign army.

The unpaywalled explainer that prompted your request captures this tension through Venezuelan voices: people describing relief that Maduro is gone, paired with deep discomfort at the method—an invasion isn’t a cleansing rain; it’s a fire.

When a society has lived through years of political repression and economic collapse, “normal” ethical sequencing collapses too. Legality becomes abstract when your day-to-day life has been reduced to scarcity, fear, and exit plans.

And the scale of exit has been staggering: UNHCR reports nearly 7.9 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants worldwide. 

The UN’s own communications have described the crisis in human terms: millions leaving because of violence, insecurity, lack of essentials, and poverty, with millions more needing humanitarian assistance.  

6) A reminder: Venezuela didn’t “suddenly collapse” — it has been collapsing in chapters

Maduro has ruled since 2013, after being chosen by Hugo Chávez, and his tenure coincided with severe economic breakdown and intensified authoritarian practices (how you weight which cause matters depends on your politics; that the suffering is real does not). 

Human Rights Watch documents patterns of repression and cites Venezuelan civil society group Foro Penal reporting large numbers of political detentions in the post-2024 election period. 

Reuters reported days ago—before this week’s strike—that human rights organisations estimate hundreds of political prisoners remained detained, with releases and counts disputed between state claims and civil society verification. 

This context matters because it clarifies why some Venezuelans may feel something dangerously close to hope this week—while others feel the cold certainty that violence begets violence.

7) The question underneath the question: what precedent did the U.S. just set?

Pope Leo XIV has publicly urged that Venezuela remain independent and called for respect for human rights, rule of law, and constitutional sovereignty, explicitly in response to these events. 

Reuters also reports the UN Secretary-General warning this sets a dangerous precedent. 

That phrase—dangerous precedent—is diplomatic code for:

“If you can do this, others will copy you. And then we’re all living in a world where power replaces law.”

Even people who believe Maduro deserved removal still have to confront the chilling symmetry: the U.S. has condemned territorial aggression elsewhere, including Russia’s actions in Ukraine. The legitimacy of those condemnations relies, at least partly, on the idea that rules apply to everyone.

8) So… what now? (The only honest answer is: nobody knows)

What we can say, without speculation:

• Venezuela’s interim leadership is taking shape around Delcy Rodríguez, with state backing.  
• The UN and major powers are contesting legality and consequences.  
• The oil dimension will shape diplomatic bargaining, sanctions posture, and corporate interest.  
• Venezuelans—inside the country and across the diaspora—remain the primary stakeholders, and also the most exposed to whatever comes next.